1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a user interface of a mobile communication terminal, and more particularly to a method for transmitting a character message.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, when a user of a mobile communication terminal such as a cellular phone attempts to make a call to another mobile communication terminal, if the other party (i.e., receiving party) does not answer the call within a certain elapsed time, the mobile communication system offers an automatically converted voice mail function. Under this condition, if the user who attempts to make the call (that is, the calling party) leaves a voice message through the voice mail function, the receiving party can thereafter access a voice message through his/her own mobile communication terminal. The receiving party can thus listen to the voice message by calling to a voice mail center. The receiving party is required to pay the charge because he/she must call to the voice mail center to retrieve the message.
In view of this situation, the caller can alternatively send a character message to the receiving party using an SMS (Short Message Service), instead of leaving a voice message, when the call fails due to no reply of the receiving party. As a result, the receiving can check the message directly by use of his/her own mobile communication terminal performing SMS, without paying the charge to retrieve a voice message.
However, though it is possible to transmit the character message using the conventional mobile communication terminal, such a mobile terminal requires the caller to go through diverse complicated procedures in order to send the character message, upon failure of the originating call due to no reply by the receiving party. Thus, the user (calling party) first presses the end key or causes the originating call to end by closing the folder or flip, and enters the character message after looking for and choosing a character message menu item. The user then re-enters the other party's (receiving party's) phone number, which is the same number entered by the user upon an attempt to make the call. Thus, the user using the conventional mobile communication terminal has to go through a number of complicated steps to send a character message instead of a voice message.